"What's the purpose of it, anyway? Do the people have to come here and breathe this air, I wonder? I asked several people that, and I'm afraid they think I'm crazy." "But you are here? Do you come to Mrs. Salisbury's often?" "Never been before. Never seen a person here in my life before--except you and Miss Olive. Came on a bet. Chap bet I wouldn't dare come without being invited. I came. Bowed to the hostess and told her I was so sorry my play-rehearsals made me late, and she was _so_ glad I could come, _after all_--you know. She's never seen me in her life." "Oh? Are you a dramatist?" "I was--in the other room. But I was a doctor out in the hall and a sculptor on the stairs, so I'm getting sort of confused myself--as confused as you are, trying to remember who I am, Miss Winslow. You really don't remember me at all? Tea at--wasn't it at the Vanderbilt? or the Plaza?" "Oh yes, that must have been----I was trying to remember----" Carl grinned. "The chap who introduced me to you called me 'Mr. Um-m-m,' because he didn't remember my name, either. So you've never heard it. It happens to be Ericson.... I'm on a mission. Serious one. I'm planning to go out and buy a medium-sized bomb and blow up this bunch. I suspect there's poets around." "I do too," sighed Ruth. "I understand that Mrs. Salisbury always has seven lawyers and nineteen advertising men and a dentist and a poet and an explorer at her affairs. Are you the poet or the explorer?" "I'm the dentist. I think----You don't happen to have done any authoring, do you?" "Well, nothing except an epic poyem on Jonah and the Whale, which I wrote at the age of seven. Most of it consisted of a conversation between them, while Jonah was in the Whale's stomach, which I think showed agility on the part of the Whale." "Then maybe it's safe to say what I think of authors--and more or less of poets and painters and so on. One time I was in charge of some mechanical investigations, and a lot of writers used to come around looking for what they called 'copy.' That's where I first got my grouch on them, and I've never really got over it; and coming here to-night and hearing the littery talk I've been thinking how these authors have a sort of an admiration trust. They make authors the heroes of their stories and so on, and so they make people think that writing is sacred. I'm so sick of reading novels about how young Bill, as had a pure white soul, came to New York and had an 'orrible time till his great novel was accepted. Authors seem to think they're the only ones that have ideals. Now I'm in the automobile business, and I help to make people get out into the country--bet a lot more of them get out because of motoring than because of reading poetry about spring. But if I claimed a temperament because I introduce the motorist's soul to the daisy, every one would die laughing." "But don't you think that art is the--oh, the object of civilization and that sort of thing?"